Chapter 1

TECHNOLOGY AND
HOW WE WORK
We are all growing volcanoes approaching
the hour of their eruption.
—Friedrich Nietzsche

I started working with workplace technologies way back in the mid-

1990s. Over the course of my career, I have spent more than my fair
share of time in front of a computer. I have used a panoply of different
tools, graphical user interfaces (GUIs),1 programming languages, operating
systems, databases, system architectures, systems, productivity applica-
tions, and reporting tools. Although no one has seen and worked on every-
thing, I have come just about as close as anyone I know. After 10 years in the
corporate world, let’s just say that I know my way around a computer.
I look at technology today and am simply amazed. It’s so different on
so many levels compared to 15 years ago. I’m old enough to remember a
time before e-mail, Internet browsers, and Microsoft Office.2 Back then, just
about all companies used applications and systems that are very different
from what they use today.
In my days as a technology consultant, I have worked with many differ-
ent types of companies. I’ve advised single-person home-based businesses

1
Including the now antiquated green screens.
2
I absolutely despised early versions of WordPerfect, the antithesis of “what you see is
what you get” or WYSIWYG. Imagine today printing out a document and having no
idea about how it would be formatted.
 and 50,000 employee multinational corporations—and just about all types
in between. I can also lay claim to working with companies in many differ-
ent industries: health care, nonprofit, telecommunications, hi-tech, public
sector retail, manufacturing, and professional services. It’s fair to say that all
organizations use technology, with some doing so much better than oth-
ers.

The Consultant’s Perspective

Technology consultants are for the most part change agents. For a va-
riety of reasons, we are contracted to help organizations move from one
platform, system, or application to another. Consider a typical project for
someone like me. A company purchases a new technology, and absent
the requisite internal expertise, brings in consultants to make it work. Of
course, we consultants can do only so much. We’re not miracle workers,
despite what salespeople might have said before contracts were signed—
and despite what clients themselves wanted to hear. On particularly con-
tentious or difficult projects, such as most of the ones detailed in Why New
Systems Fail, consultants tend to shoulder most of the blame.
In my career, I’ve seen people make some horrendous decisions de-
ploying new technologies. As a conscientious consultant, I attempted to
steer them away from decisions ultimately not in their organization’s best
interests—or theirs, for that matter. Sometimes I’ve been successful; some-
times I’ve just irritated them and have had to admit defeat. This has hap-
pened to me with companies of all sizes: small, medium, and large.
Truth be told, however, I’m much more of a small business type of guy.
I simply prefer working in smaller environments, where people generally
rely less upon strict policies and procedures and more on plain old com-
mon sense.3 Finding a solution to a problem tends to be more important
than interminably debating the pros and cons of each alternative in end-
less meetings, childish bickering, internal politics, and extensive CYA.4
The New Small

3
Again, this is a general rule. There are plenty of pragmatic folks at enormous organiza-
tions and probably just as many irrational folks at mom-and-pop stores.
4
Consultant-speak for “cover your ass.”

4
Traditional Impediments to Small
Business Technology Adoption
As a general rule, technology at many small businesses has historically
lagged technology at larger companies for six main reasons.5 They include
these:
n Resource availability
n Perceived need
n Priorities
n Bad decisions
n IT project failure stories and statistics
n Finding the right scale
Let’s explore them.

Resource Availability
Many small businesses have lacked the financial and human resources
of their larger brethren. Historically, they often could not afford best-of-
breed systems and technologies.

Perceived Need
Many small businesses have made do with paper files, spreadsheets,
and other technological Band-Aids. Historically and at a core level, many
have not recognized that they needed proper systems or applications. Al-
though it’s hard to argue that the local food store needs the same powerful
and expensive inventory management systems as Walmart and Amazon,
both kinds of organizations need to electronically track inventory. The only Chapter 1: Technology and How We Work
difference is scale.

Priorities
Even many small businesses that recognize the need for proper sys-
tems and applications have never deployed proper systems. At these com-
panies, information technology (IT) folks have been primarily concerned
with “keeping the lights on.” The focus here has been on the usual suspects:
securing the company’s IT assets, maintaining networks, fighting fires, cre-
ating user and e-mail accounts, and handling hardware issues.

5
Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule. Some of my smaller clients have
implemented amazing and simple technologies. At the same time, many larger com-
panies have suffered from too much technology: an eye chart of overlapping legacy
systems that generally got in the way of each other.

5
 In other words, the people responsible for deploying technology have
been far too busy to upgrade their company’s technology. Despite recog-
nizing the need for better technology, more compelling business priori-
ties have forced these companies to get by with a pastiche of paper files,
spreadsheets, and other “low-tech” solutions.

Bad Decisions
Many organizations originally made bad technology-related decisions
that they ultimately intended to address. Unfortunately, for whatever rea-
son, many of these mistakes have never been corrected. Even the best of
intentions get derailed. Applied within the context of this book, years ago
many small businesses outgrew their original, limited applications and
technologies. They have not had the time, money, or desire to upgrade
them.

IT Project Failure Stories and Statistics

Horror stories from other organizations have often deterred many
small businesses from making the jump into new technology. To be sure,
large system implementations fail more frequently and spectacularly than
relatively small IT projects. However, the latter often miss their mark.

Finding the Right Scale

Many traditional client-server applications were geared toward busi-
nesses of a certain size. A small company in the midst of decent growth
would typically pause to consider before buying and implementing an
enterprise-wide system. Consider the following conundrum:
n Growth in the number of employees, transactions, or physical loca-
tions would make a starter system obsolete. If growth continues,
in a few years, the company would have to revisit the process of
choosing a new system.
n If growth abates, the company would have purchased too much
technology. It would be stuck indefinitely with excessive IT support
and maintenance costs, inhibiting future growth and potentially
threatening the success of the company.
The scale issue often deterred many small companies from making
much-needed investments in technology.
The New Small

The Paradox of Dramatically Increased Choice

As has been discussed, the last five years has produced a massive tech-
nological explosion. Make no mistake: this has been an explosion of both

6
breadth and depth. New technologies have emerged, as has the number
of existing options within existing technologies. (This is true even against
a backdrop of an enormous amount of simultaneous merger and acquisi-
tion activity in the software world.) As a result, today many companies are
simply unsure about what to do. Although increased choice with regard
to technology is hardly a bad thing, many small business owners are inun-
dated with options, unsure about “the best” solution for their companies.
Call this paralysis by analysis.
For example, consider the number of different products offered by one
very large technology company. Google has done many amazing things
on many different levels.6 In recent years, it has moved far beyond merely
providing the world’s most popular search engine. Consider what some of
the company’s applications can do for its business customers:
n Allow for customized e-mail domains (Gmail for Business).
n Share and manage online schedules (Google Calendar).
n Create team websites as easily as drafting documents (Google
Sites).
n Collaborate in real time on documents, presentations, and spread-
sheets (Google Apps and Google Docs). Indeed, over 30 million
people use these tools.i
n Analyze traffic data for websites (Google Analytics).7
And Google isn’t alone. Other companies such as OpenOfficeii and Zo-
iii
ho (discussed later in this book) offer similar arrays of related, integrated,
and easily deployable services aimed at small businesses, although larger
organizations can use them as well.
This is not to say that software vendors have long neglected the small
business market. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, com- Chapter 1: Technology and How We Work
panies such as Sage Softwareiv have long sold applications geared toward
the small business. At the risk of excessively generalizing, however, today’s
small business applications are far superior to their antecedents on several
levels:
n They offer increased integration, both out of the box and in terms
of future development after the purchase.
n They are relatively easy to deploy and customize.

6
Ken Auletta’s excellent book Googled details how Larry Page and Sergey Brin rarely
strayed from their overall vision in creating a revolutionary search engine.
7
This is hardly a comprehensive list of Google’s offerings. For such a list, see http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products.

7
 n Especially for SaaS solutions, there’s comparatively little internal
maintenance involved.
Collectively, these factors mean that small businesses can be up and
running with integrated and powerful software in a much shorter period of
time than in years past. By extension, small business owners and employees
can focus on growing their businesses, not on IT headaches and deploy-
ment nightmares. However, before any company can reap the benefits of
these technologies, it has to choose to deploy them. For many small busi-
nesses, that’s no longer an easy decision. This is the paradox of increased
choice.

An Era of Constant Technological Change

In the words of Mitchell Kapor, pioneer of the personal computing
revolution: “Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from
a fire hydrant.” Few would dispute that we have entered an era of severe
information and technology overload. Nearly every day (or every hour, if
you’re like me), we seem to hear about a new technology, website, gadget,
or technology-inspired event that can affect our lives. In large part, today’s
environment stems from what many technology pundits and thought lead-
ers have called “the consumerization of IT.”8
Forget the ancient times of needing to read the newspaper to know
what’s happening. Think back to the days in which e-mail fundamentally
changed the way many of us communicate. Those days now seem quaint
in comparison to today’s deluge of information. We instant message (IM),
tweet, text, and “friend” others from our nearly ubiquitous portable devices.
Some people, particularly those in Generation Y (aka Millenials), think noth-
ing about divulging amazingly personal details about themselves on social
networking sites such as Facebook. Five years ago, cell phones were com-
mon, although they were hardly the minicomputers they are today. Kindles,
iPads, and Nooks are just a few of the devices altering the way that we con-
sume information. Not too long ago, almost everyone used a PC equipped
with Microsoft Windows and Office. Now, mobility, cloud computing, and
open source software allow for things previously unfathomable. And most
important, this flurry of activity isn’t letting up anytime soon.
In the world of small businesses, this flood of technology has produced
mixed results. Relatively few are thriving, doing more with less. Others are
The New Small

seeing only mild benefits. Many if not most are standing still, unable or un-
willing to effect change.

8
In a nutshell, most people no longer see and touch technology only at work.

8
 This is hardly surprising. In fact, it has always been the case with new
technologies and inventions. In this sense, the era of Web 2.0 is not unique.
Other periods rife with disruptive technologies have also brought a mixed
bag of results.
So what exactly has changed now? In a word, speed.

The Challenges of Staying Current

I need to keep abreast of a wide variety of dynamic topics, not only for
myself but for my clients. Trying to stay current is easier said than done. If
I’m on a consulting gig for as little time as a week, I routinely wonder about
what I’m missing outside my client’s walls. If I’m writing a piece for one of
my clients on a specific topic, such as social media, I can’t help but think
about what’s happening in other spheres. You could say such is life for the
perennially curious man in the twenty-first century. Although the old ad-
age “So many books, so little time” is still true, it could also be updated to
“So many technologies, so little time.”
These technologies are changing the rules by which we live and do busi-
ness. They are taking people out of their comfort zones. Today, most people
in organizations of all sizes need to deal with a great deal of technology-
oriented change. Although I don’t have a crystal ball, I just don’t see this
abating anytime soon.
Books such as Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark
Age9 and The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains10 cover the
potential long-term effects of this frenetic pace of activity. These books
ask profound questions. Have we opened a new Pandora’s box? Despite
the benefits of our constantly connected world, do we fully understand its
costs? Do we really know all of the pros and cons of these new technolo-
gies? Chapter 1: Technology and How We Work
For most businesses, the answer to each of these questions is a re-
sounding no. In the spring of 2010, I spoke at a few professional organiza-
tions about emerging technologies, social media, and website design. One
in particular stands out. In April, I addressed a local Chamber of Commerce
in Florham Park, NJ. I spoke to a group of about 40 small business own-
ers who wanted to know more about recent developments in technology.
My talk was originally scheduled for half an hour, but I knew within five
minutes that I had struck a nerve with the audience. They kept peppering
me with questions about blogging, cloud computing, software as a ser-
vice (SaaS), and other new topics with which they were vaguely familiar. I

9
By Maggie Jackson and Bill McKibben.
10
By Nicolas Carr.

9
 suspect that, had they not had to go work, we would have chatted all day.
Our conversation lasted nearly 90 minutes.
No matter where I went, I kept thinking about small businesses’ strug-
gles with—and misconceptions about—emerging technologies. For ex-
ample, in June of 2010, I needed to get my tennis racquet restrung. Rather
than go to a large chain store, I try to support local businesses. I frequent
the aptly named WhatARacquet close to my home. After all, I’m a local busi-
ness here in northern NJ as well—although a really small one. At the time, I
hadn’t begun writing this book.
As I paid for my restrung racquet at the counter, I started chatting with
one of WhatARacquet’s co-owners, a woman named Linda. She knew that
I was a tech guy and asked me whether I thought she needed a proper
website or could get away with just a Facebook page. Never one lacking
opinions, I offered mine: why not both?11 I explained to her the benefits of
social networks and media. She was all ears.
It seems to me that many small business owners are awash in a sea of
technology they aren’t using. Most haven’t explored mobility, cloud com-
puting, social technologies, and so on. They aren’t keeping up with many of
the changes that could significantly help them on so many levels.

Reasons for Lagging

I began to wonder about why so many small business owners seem to
be unaware of the profound technological changes currently taking place.
Reasons include:
n Some are just overwhelmed by the rate of change.
n Some just don’t care—they don’t plan to change anything if they
can avoid it.
n Some are probably intimidated by these new technologies.
n Some just aren’t aware. Their attention is elsewhere.
n Some subscribe to the view “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I suppose that this would make sense if these emerging technologies
offered only marginal improvements to John Q. Business Owner. But that’s
just not the case. These days, many small companies ignore technologies
that, at a minimum, can help them significantly:
n Grow their businesses
The New Small

n Attract talented employees

11
Why some companies don’t have a Facebook presence is beyond me. Facebook re-
cently achieved more than 500,000,000 registered users. Put another way: if Face-
book were a country, only India and China would have more citizens.

10
 n Improve access to key information
n Increase employee communication and collaboration
n Reduce costs of recruiting, IT, and marketing
n Compete with larger companies
Of course, exceptions abound. Some small businesses are using emerg-
ing technologies in creative and interesting ways to achieve these benefits.
These are the New Small.

Kranzberg’s Laws of Technology

Lest I paint a morbid picture of the state of small business technology
adoption, let’s review a little history. This is hardly the first time that mas-
sive technological change has affected the American workplace and the
fundamental way that people actually perform their jobs.12 Melvin Kranz-
berg spent decades lecturing about the history of technology. He is most
famous for his six laws of technology, listed below:
n Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.
n Invention is the mother of necessity.
n Technology comes in packages, big and small.
n Although technology might be a prime element in many public
issues, nontechnical factors take precedence in technology-policy
decisions.
n All history is relevant, but the history of technology is the most rel-
evant.
n Technology is a very human activity—and so is the history of
technology.v
Chapter 1: Technology and How We Work

Although technology constantly changes, Kranzberg’s laws have had

remarkable staying power.13 Today, emerging technologies are allowing
small businesses to do amazing things. From a technology perspective,
they can act big and scale just as easily as larger players. No longer are pow-
erful enterprise technologies necessarily too big or too expensive for small
businesses. In many cases, smaller companies can do exactly what the big
boys can do at a fraction of the cost.

12
Perhaps the best account of this I’ve read is Dennis Baron’s book, A Better Pencil: Read-
ers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution. For centuries, people have questioned advanc-
es in the world of writing.
13
I am reminded here of the signature Rush song “Tom Sawyer” with the apropos lyric
“Changes aren’t permanent, but change is.”

11
 From a people management perspective, new communication technol-
ogy, for example, can be a godsend. Employees are able to work wherever
and whenever they choose. Increased flexibility is, in fact, a major reason
that many people work for smaller outfits or start their own shops. Other
motivations include the ability to have a greater impact at work and the
desire to be one’s own boss. Although the reasons vary, we will see later on
that many New Small founders had similar motivations in deciding to start
their own businesses.
Companies of any size that lack a coherent technology strategy ulti-
mately pay the price, and not just in terms of money wasted on failed IT proj-
ects. In such workplaces, many employees feel completely overwhelmed
by too much technology; they are not sure about what they should be do-
ing, much less how to do it.
Over the last two years, I have written a great deal about the different
effects of these technologies, as well as related trends, events, and innova-
tions. The vast majority of my writing, consulting, and speaking over the
last two years has revolved around one central question: how can organiza-
tions make the best use of emerging technologies?
It’s a big question, and its answer hinges on the following:
n The type and size of the organization
n The industry
n Profit margins and competition
n The specific technology
n Regulatory considerations
n The economy
n Business imperatives
I’ve come to one conclusion: all else being equal, it’s better to be small.
That’s right. For several reasons, it’s no longer a liability to be the little
guy. As mentioned earlier, the last five years have seen a massive explosion
of available and viable business technologies that allow small businesses to
compete. In general and compared to their larger counterparts, small com-
panies are simply better able to adapt to changes and move in different
directions as needed. This book illustrates how small businesses are now
leapfrogging big companies, effectively deploying new technologies faster,
more effectively, and at lower costs.
The New Small

But it gets better. Yes, compared to big companies, many small busi-
nesses are adopting new technologies at both greater speed and lower
cost. These represent two sources of a new competitive advantage for these
nimble, agile companies. At the New Small, new technologies are enabling
a completely different mindset and definition of work. Smaller outfits and

12
start-ups are attracting top-flight talent because, to some extent, they al-
low work to be done anywhere: from home, on a beach, or in a coffee shop.
This tech-friendly ethos is allowing employees to work on their own terms,
addressing the work-life imbalance from which many people suffer (more
on this in Chapters 2 and 4). In this vein, the New Small is using technology
strategically to win the war for talent.

The Five Enablers

So, there’s good news for small businesses on several fronts. Emerg-
ing technologies are allowing progressive companies to leap ahead of oth-
ers still struggling to figure things out. But which technologies are making
such a dramatic difference? There are five specific ones, and in this book, I
collectively refer to them as the Five Enablers:
n Cloud computing
n Software as a service (SaaS)
n Free and open source software (FOSS)
n Mobility
n Social technologies
New Small companies effectively deploy and use the Five Enablers. As
a result, they have the same—or even superior—technology compared to
organizations 10 times their size, often at a fraction of the time and cost.
What’s more, these businesses go from technological laggards to leaders.

Traditional Aphorisms
For many years, many small businesses have followed traditional busi-
ness aphorisms such as “do more with less,” “focus on what you do best,” Chapter 1: Technology and How We Work
and “never be satisfied.” Progressive small businesses have always looked
for ways to do things better, faster, and cheaper while concurrently main-
taining focus. In this manner, the Five Enablers are merely means to tradi-
tional ends.

A Welcome Byproduct
The Five Enablers are doing so much more than allowing New Small
companies to upgrade their technology and reduce their IT budgets: they
are enabling employees at these companies to work in much more fulfilling
jobs. As you see in the small companies profiled later in this book, fewer em-
ployees’ jobs are rigidly defined and compartmentalized. Ask many owners
of New Small companies to name their head of IT, for example, and they will
probably say, “Well, we all sort of pitch in” or “It’s probably Steven today.”

13
 The New Small is creating more meaningful jobs, and in the process,
turning long-held management theories on their head. In some circles,
they are reversing Scientific Management, the theory developed by Fred-
erick Taylor in the late nineteenth century and largely adopted by many
businesses around the globe. No longer does work need to be excessively
specialized, repetitive, and mind-numbingly boring. Through the Five En-
ablers, the New Small is injecting a much-needed sense of excitement into
many workplaces.

Why Now?
Astute readers will note that these technologies have existed in one
form or another for quite some time. They may be more evolutionary than
revolutionary. So, what has changed? First, as with bandwidth and storage,
over the last 10 years these technologies have become significantly less
expensive and even more powerful. The net result: by and large, small com-
panies are now able to afford these exciting technologies. Second, deploy-
ment is far easier and more flexible. No longer do small businesses have
to attempt to predict just how much technology they will need—and face
dire consequences if they are wrong. As we see in Chapter 3, today a com-
pany of 200 employees can scale its technology in the same way that a
20,000-employee company can. Third, success begets more success, creat-
ing a type of network effect.14 Technologies become more popular because,
reflexively, they are already popular. For example, as more companies have
adopted cloud computing, others have become emboldened to do the
same. Lessons and case studies become available as different technologies
and products become more mature. While the evolution of technology is
by no means finished, with respect to the Five Enablers, we certainly under-
stand a great deal more than we did five years ago.
The New Small

14
A network effect is “the resulting increased value of a product because more and
more people use it. Telephones, fax machines, and computer operating systems are
examples. A product’s success is due to compatibility and conformity issues, not that
the product or technology may be superior or inferior to the competition.” See http://
computer.yourdictionary.com/network-effect.

14
 SUMMARY
This chapter has examined the reasons that many
small businesses have historically been technological
laggards—and why this is now changing. It also in-
troduced the Five Enablers: the emerging technolo-
gies currently enabling the New Small to realize enor-
mous benefits, savings, and efficiencies. The bottom
line is that today there are major advantages to being
small.
The next chapter will provide greater context
about the nature of these technological changes in
the workplace.

Endnotes
i
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iBM55JyzGXlgtxrJ3gu9qt
Cx30dA
ii
http://www.openoffice.org
iii
http://www.zoho.com
iv
http://www.sagenorthamerica.com/products_services
v
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kranzberg%27s_laws_of_technology

Chapter 1: Technology and How We Work

15